Getting the Games for London has been the fulfilment of a dream. It is one which I truly believe can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people for the better. But in the end, nothing can quite compare with winning your first Olympic gold medal.
I had a very ordinary background in Sheffield; I went to a secondary modern, but I saw something on TV in 1968 that inspired me to join an athletics club, and 12 years later, with great coaching and the support of people who loved me a lot, I ended up at an Olympic Games.
Some people found it difficult to understand my relationship with my father, but that may have been because they couldn't get beyond their relationship with their own parents.
During my first Olympics in 1980, at the age of 23, I was physically in great condition but mentally too inexperienced to cope comfortably in the pressure cooker of an Olympic year.
I can remember the day I decided I would retire from competitive athletics as vividly as if it were yesterday.
In 1981, I spoke at the Olympic Congress. I was scandalised that I was the first athlete to be given that chance. But I made the most of it.
Nobody ever becomes an expert parent. But I think good parenting is about consistency. It's about being there at big moments, but it's also just the consistency of decision making. And it's routine.
I joined the local athletics club when I was 12, that's what I did. I did it of my own volition.
I started track and field when I was 12 and didn't get to an Olympic Games until I was nearly 23. By any stretch of the imagination that's a very long apprenticeship.
The Olympics are a world apart from racing for a record. You put out of your mind pretty much what anyone else doing in the race.
Marathons don't come to you overnight.
In all Games, there is always a tendency, particularly in the lead up to the Games when there isn't much sport to talk about, to write about things that are not sport.
Since the break-up of the 1990s, Russia has not had winter sports facilities. All the winter sport venues were effectively located in countries that are no longer part of the federation. There is a strong argument for saying Sochi's legacy will be this country will have winter sports facilities it did not have before.
I still run every other day. Longer at weekends. I probably do 35 miles a week.
My mother was Indian, brought up in Delhi. My grandparents were born in Bow and Poplar.
I'm probably one of the few people who can say I did all three types of state sector schooling.
Sport was an integral part of school life. The most influential teachers were not necessarily the PE teachers, but the teachers who helped me in sport because they had an understanding of what you were going through.
I've always referred to my father as 'my coach' because we were always able to separate our relationship into the roles of coach and parent.
I started daily training at the age of 14. When I was 16 years old, I was running twice a day.
My motivation to compete was always about improving one year to the next. At 34, I realised I'd never run any quicker, so why hang on? But I love running and still run along woodland trails and beaches every few days.
